There are known and commercially available to practicing chiropractors and other health practitioners numerous types of tables to assist them in conducting examinations, adjustments and treatments beneficial to a patient. When such tables are used for chiropractic adjustments, the tables are commonly designed so that the patient support is separated into separate sections for the head, chest, lumbar, pelvic and foot sections. Typically, each of these sections is independently supported on a frame, and some of the sections are moveable in ways that permit the health practitioner to conduct the desired adjustment or treatment. For example, some of the sections are constructed with a mechanism that allows the section to be displaced a predetermined distance or pivoted a predetermined amount to facilitate a particular adjustment performed by the health practitioner.
The head section of chiropractic tables is typically designed and mounted so that it can produce one or more motions. For example, some head sections are mounted so that they can pivot as a unit in a curved path about an axis extending longitudinally along the patient""s spine so that the health practitioner can impart a twisting motion on the patient""s head and thus make a rotation adjustment. In addition, the head section is typically mounted on a vertical pivot at its proximal end so that the distal end can be swung from side to side which permits the health practitioner to perform a lateral flexion of the patient""s head. Other tables are also pivotally mounted at the proximal end for movement about a horizontal axis so that the distal end at the top of the patient""s head can be tilted upwardly and downwardly to provide a flexion adjustment. In addition, some tables provide for movement of the patient""s head linearly along the spine to stretch a cervical portion of the spine and thereby induce traction on the patient""s cervical spine.
In those tables where the head section is mounted for pivotal movement about a horizontal axis so that the distal end can be tilted upwardly and downwardly to produce flexion of the patient""s cervical spine, the distance between the proximal end of the head section cushion and the adjoining chest-lumbar section will increase as the distal end of the head section tilts downwardly. Since the patient""s trunk does not move, this gap can produce excessive flexion on the patient""s spine and more flexion than the health practitioner wishes to produce. It can also produce traction even when the practitioner does not wish to induce traction on the spine.
Tables that are known in the prior art thus deprive the chiropractor or other practitioner with a lack of control over the amount of flexion that the practitioner has determined is desirable to treat the patient""s condition. Also, the known designs of chiropractic tables provide only for the pivotal movement of flexion, and if the practitioner wishes to also apply traction to the patient, the practitioner must grasp the patient""s head and lift it from the head section and apply traction directly. The head sections of known chiropractic tables do not provide for movement of the head section to allow both traction and flexion to occur using the same table.
Therefore there is a need for an improved chiropractic table which has a head section that allows the practitioner to perform a variety of manipulations more easily and more controlled than allowed on known chiropractic tables.
The invention provides a mounting for the head section of a chiropractic table that allows the practitioner to maintain a much greater degree of control over the various manipulations typically performed on the patient. The head support section therefore has a cushion that is mounted for slideable movement along the longitudinal axis of the table which coincides with the patient""s spine. With the linkage arrangement described in detail hereinafter, the proximal end of the cushion will maintain a close position to the chest lumbar section of the table as the head section is tilted downwardly to allow a controlled flexion movement of the patient""s cervical spine. This can be done either with or without applying traction to the patient""s spine. The amount of gap and thus the amount of flexion can be adjusted by adjusting the linkage that is a part of the head section structure. In addition, the slideable movement of the head cushion longitudinally allows the practitioner to apply traction to the patient""s spine with or without flexion, if such a movement is determined to be desirable.